venerdì 27 marzo 2015

Last Wednesday it seemed that all the fan world stopped. On Wednesday Zayn Malik from One Direction left the band and that day everyone, literally everyone talked about it! It's amazing how much One Direction are famous that even not fans heard the news and talked about it!

But let's take a few steps back.. the evergreen Beatles, one of the most popular and influential band in the 60's, passed through the same situation. They became a legend because it was the first time in history that a musical group brought fans' hysteria. Like every famous band there were a lot of rumors about their forthcoming split and then in 1969 John Lennon informed his band mates that he was leaving and then in 1970 Paul McCartney announced that he was quitting the Beatles too. I can't immagine the hysterical desperation of all the fans!

Shall we pass to my first boy band love in the world? Yes! My Take That! Yes, I was 4 years old and I was obsessed with them! My mum always tell me how I was madly in love with them and I tried to sing their songs at the radio while my dad was driving. Even today I remember perfectly Sure and Relight my Fire or my favourite Back for Good.
You can imagine how sad I was when Robbie Williams left the band. Ok, he had drug issues but my mum couldn't tell me he left because of that!
However, even if Robbie left, Take That continue their career as a four-piece band but in 1996 they split. After the announcement lots of fans were deeply upset about the split and some of them also threatened suicide or they broke into tears for weeks. This massive sadness was not only in the UK but also around the world and it was so widespread!
Ten years later, they reunited, for my joy, and they were so amazing!

And now my favourite girl band: the Spice Girls! OMG! I was really crazy about them and I had t-shirts, pencils and a diary with them!
I can say I was a really young fangirl! ahah
I think I melted the tape of their first album and my dad heavy walkman, in fact I listened to it like thousand times per day! I locked myself in my room inventing little new and strange dance moves listening to Wannabes non-stop. I believe me, I passed through all the "Geri is fat" and "Victoria can't sing" dramas and I was so a posh spice girl!
In 1998 when Geri decided to leave the group I was shocked and angry thinking "how she can leave us like that?". She said that she was suffering from exhaustion and wanted to
take a break but as a 7-year-old girl I couldn't understand. However, the Spice Girls continue their american tour and they never broke up officially.

Here we are today, with Zayn leaving One Direction. I must admit that, even if I'm 23, I love One Direction! Since they begin their career I always had a look on them and their really nice songs but I never appreciated them as lately.
In these years I loved some of their songs but since their latest album came out I never appreciated them fully.
Four for me was a revelation! I literallu loved this album from Night Changes, passing through Girl Almighty, to Change your Ticket or No Control. I know every single song and I begin to listen to their previous albums!

I really started to appreciated also the boys, they seem to be kind and nice. Even if I am a Harry-girl when I read the statement of Zayn, I was sad. I don't know why, but I was.
Zayn took a pause from their world tour just few weeks before because of stress issues, then he left because he wanted to be a normal 22-year-old boy but according to the Sun, Zayn is going to start a solo career. Wasn't it easier to say it before?
However I hope that the Harry, Niall, Liam and Louis continue their career because I really like them and their music.
One Direction have a huge international fandom so you can imagine how desperate the fans are right now. Liam had to write a tweet to ensure all the deep desperation of the fans who cried their eyes out after the official announcement.

How crazy is this feeling of loss when something happens to your favourite band, or singer, or actor?
How we arrive to be so attached to people that don't even know we exist?
This is really mysterious in my eyes but I am in that weird tunnel too.
How hard is life for a fangirl/boy? So hard!

venerdì 20 marzo 2015

Recently there has been a lot of reconsideration about women. I think that something good is happening in our society and it is amazing.

I'm 23 years old girl and I grew up with a certain consideration about me as a woman. Yes, I am a woman but I don't need to be submissive or docile just because men said so. I've just said men because we have to admit that in the last 50-60 years, our society was pretty much a men's centered one, in fact my dad has a different view of a woman being a 65 year-old-man grew up with a male chauvinist thought about women. Even if I often disagree with my dad about the role of a woman in our society he always pushed and encouraged me to be the strongest and most independent woman in the world.
I'm glad that my parents always encoraged me as a woman, because in this crazy world a lot of girls and women can't say the same.

For example, almost 3 months ago, during a lecture at the university, we talked about Malala Yousafzai, a pakistani girl who fought for her education, but she's not an ordinary girl, because she was the youngest winner of a Nobel prize for peace. A young girl of 12-13 years old who decided to begin to write about the condition of her country on a blog, soon became a icon for every girl in the world to whom education is denied because she's a girl. Malala was shoot in the head three times for being an activist for female education but she survived and she's still carry on her campaign against discrimation of genders for education. I have to say that at the beginning I didn't know much about Malala, but as soon as I discovered her story, she became such a great inspiration for me and I told myself that if I ever had children, and those children will refuse to go to school I'll tell them the story of Malala, who was shoot just because she fought for her and every girl's education.

Another recent example of reconsideration of women was at the latest Oscars when the winner of the best supporting actress award gave a really inspiring speech. Patricia Arquette, who played the role of a mother in Boyhood, says:

which is not important just for USA but for the entire world.

Then, we have the Queen, Beyonce, who definied herself feminist. When I was younger and I thought about that word, I would said that a feminist was a woman who believe in femal superiority and hate of men, but today I agree with Beyonce who said

"A Feminist is the person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes"

A really great and meaningful example is also Emma Watson and her UN's campaign "HeForShe", which had an enormous success! Maybe she was the first woman in the last year who begin this attitude's change.
She said:

and I was really surprised to see how many famous and non-famous people, especially men, joined her cause. It was incredible and everything I was thinking about when I saw that, was maybe it's really changing something!

The last example I want to talk about is Ashley Graham, a plus sized model. Right now she's becoming very popular because she's the icon of the beauy change. Finally she introduced on a really high level another type of beauty, out of the fashion imposed stereotypes. She's tall and not skinny and in my opinion she embodies my vision of a normal woman, because most of the women bodies are like hers not like the "normal" models' ones. She was the first plus sized model to make an appearance in Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit, which is famous fot its skinny and amazing models, but she was also able to create a lingerie line for women with curve, because she heard that most of the time these "plus sized" women don't even find their right size in the "normal" lines.
I like her because she's standing for a body revolution!

Moreover, a couple of weeks ago, it took place Beijing20, the UN's women conference which celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and World Conference on Women. They had the opportunity to discuss the change of the role of women and gender equality but most of all, the conference had a positive response also from a lot of celebrities.
I believe that this is the begin of a new vision of women and genders which is really important for the development of our future society.

mercoledì 11 marzo 2015

It's the international woman's day week and also Paris Fashion week!
What a better way to celebrate the best designer 's view of women through the latest fashion trends?
It's Paris, the most romantic and chic city in the world and it's fashion week! I'd pay a ton of gold to be there.

Let's start with Balmain. This year its collection is very colorful and despite I am a "always wear black girl", I really liked it. The main colours are green, yellow, purple, orange and black, which are fall colours that really trend in in the recent years.
The sartorial line is clean and flowing but also geometrical.
The main accessory used in this collection is the high waisted color belt with golden buckle.

I have to admit that I was disappointed by one of my favourite designer Elie Saab. Ok, this a Fall/Winter collection and I must have dark colours in it, but I don't know, I feel like he held back all that "wow" that generally characterized all his collections.
This collection was really dark and classic. I mean.. where are the sparks?

Also Gianbattista Valli was a little bit subdued and dull. Maybe it's because of the dark colours in relation on his last lighter ready-to-wear collection.

Valentino used his customary and signature classic and clean lines. The collection was characterized by a very elegant black and white. I really liked the little black dresses with lace and fringe details.

At the end of the show appeared two super models! Derek and Hensel in all their glory! Great idea to promote Zoolander 2!

Chanel decided to invite us to Brasserie Gabrielle for lunch. Karl Lagerfeld proposed the classic Chanel's tailleur but today it is updated with modern shapes on the sleeves or on the skirts.

One of the designer that I usually understimate is Rochas, that this year created a really nice, simple and delicate collection which I loved.

However my favourite was Saint Laurent who created a rock punk 80's collection. It is genial! This collection mixed elegance and grunge style, classic and modern, rock and chic, male and female. Just perfect!